We’re thrilled to announce that our Stage Manager, Maggie Fullilove-Nugent, will increase her monkey commitments by taking on this job.

In addition to Maggie, we’ve also hired long-time monkey Sarah Goeden as the new After School Program Coordinator. For some reason we don’t seem to have a hilarious photo of her in a silly hat, so here she is on the far right of the second row in this group shot from 2004.

More about all of these delightful developments after the jump. 

Maggie started stage managing for us in 2005, was officially made a company member in 2006, and has spent the last couple of years basically making herself indispensable in every way. Maggie just loves to manage people, plays and companies, so to make sure she has enough on her plate she is also the Production Manager for The Hypocrites and North Park University Theatre.  As a freelance lighting designer and technician, Maggie has worked on over 50 productions in the past few years in Chicago and with several amazing companies including 500 Clown, The House, The Building Stage, Lifeline and The Artistic Home.  As Company Manager she will help with virtually every facet of the organization, from scheduling school show rehearsals to bookkeeping, prop wrangling and more. Those of us on the full-time staff can not wait to have her around for her smarts, charm, and practical good sense.

Meanwhile, Sarah Geoden will work on developing our Loyola Park after school program, our general after school curriculum, and on creating a model for our planned expansion south in 2010. Sarah has taught with BOM for 8 years, and last year was a lead teacher for both in-school and after school programs. She has taught creative writing, acting, and improvisation for five years with After School Matters and has been teaching theater movement and circus arts for the last four years at The Actors Gymnasium.  In the Chicagoland area, she has also taught with The Vittum Theatre, Children’s Home and Aid, the CAST program in Oak Park, and the Youth Arts Program in Evanston.  She also has spent 7 summers teaching theatre at youth theatre-conservatory programs, to 8 through 18-year-old students from diverse economic and social backgrounds.  We are really excited to have her take over running the Loyola Park program and look forward to expanding it every year.

In case you didn’t recognize her in the group shot above, here’s a super serious photo of Sarah:

On a personal note, I have to say that sharing an office with Luke, Elizabeth, and Maggie will be joyful experience. I can’t imagine a more even-keeled, insightful, intelligent and generally delightful group. I look forward to lots of fascinating conversations, reasoned debates, and general smooth sailing as we move into BOM’s second decade. I’m also thrilled to have Sarah, Elizabeth and all the amazing teaching artists on board to help deepen the impact of our educational programming on the Chicago community; their work in the schools is the core of what we do, and I am grateful for their dedication.

Meanwhile, Laura is so dang talented that The Second City hired her to write and perform with them. For the last six months or so Laura has been doing the equivalent of holding two full time jobs, and she’s continued to meet and exceed our artistic hopes and dreams. Sadly though, she can’t continue this balancing act and will be stepping down as Artistic Director at the end of August. While this is sad for me in the office, it may be a delight for you the dedicated monkey fan as we will regain her as a performer in our school shows and the occasional run of TWG.

I am extremely pleased to announce that we have hired Luke Hatton as our new Artistic Director.

As you can see, he’s pretty serious about the job. 

I can not say enough how much we as an organization owe to Halena and Laura. We could go on for pages about Halena’s dedication and skill in establishing the company, and her tireless efforts to get BOM up and running and ready to be pushed out of the nest. I’m hoping that some of you will take a moment to express your appreciation in the comments to this post.

I was lucky enough to share an office with Halena for two years, and as the first non-ensemble member employee of BOM, I owe a lot to Halena’s strength of vision and clarity of expression in getting me up to speed with the organization’s past, present, and goals for the future. It also goes without saying (at least for those of you who have seen her work) that Halena is an immensely talented theater artist. Her performance and directing work are respected throughout Chicago and her talent level has a lot to do with why BOM has been able to thrive.

It has also been a real joy for me personally to get to work with Laura this year, and I have infinite respect for her prodigious talent and can’t wait to see her back on the monkey stage. It was no easy task for her to have to step into Halena’s shoes, and we learned a lot about the company and the role of the Artistic Director. To Laura’s immense credit, this did not feel like a transition year, and we were able to continue to serve our mission uninterrupted. In addition to the daily responsibilities of managing the company and directing most of the shows, Laura helped focus our goals for the future as we developed a new strategic plan, instituted new policies, and in general maintained the artistic excellence we’ve all come to expect.

Clearly, Laura and Halena will be missed (though, as I said, Laura will remain in Chicago and work with us as her schedule permits). It speaks to the depth of the ensemble that they created, however, that we were able to hire Luke.

Luke has been with Barrel of Monkeys since shortly after graduating from Northwestern in 2000. In that time he has held almost every possible role in the organization (including performer, director, teacher, finance administrator...) and has always been a dependable, talented, and invested company member.

A graduate of the Steppenwolf School, Luke also has extensive performance and directing experience outside of Barrel of Monkeys. He’s performed with Steppenwolf, The Neo-Futurists, The Hypocrites, The Gift, Lifeline, and with Geva Theatre Center in New York and as an arts educator, Luke has developed and taught curriculum with After School Matters and Adventure Stage Chicago.  He is highly respected by all who have worked with him, and we are hugely confident in his ability to lead BOM into our second decade.

In the coming weeks we will also hire a new part-time Company Manager to replace the incomparable Geoff Rice, whose expanding family and artistic responsibilities mean he will have to stick to “merely” being one of our most dedicated performers and teachers. We will thus begin our second decade with a largely new staff, but with a consistent mission and strong infrastructure for the future, which is a testament to the hard work and skill of the people who founded this company.

We will have a small celebration following the September 1st performance of “That’s Weird, Grandma” in Laura’s honor. Luke’s first day is September 2nd, and I hope you will join me in welcoming him to the staff.